1. What did you last replace batteries for?

   A Flip Camera

2. What have you thrown away that you probably could have had repaired?

This one is a lot harder than I expected it to be. The answer is probably a shirt that I threw out because the seems on the side and come apart. Now in all honesty, this was before I got my sewing machine, and before I knew I was getting one. So the prospect of hand sewing it didn’t really work for me.

3. Among items in your line of sight right now, what should probably be put in the trash?

A credit for Snapfish that I’ve already loaded into my account. A box that the replacement cable modem came in and has been sitting on the floor next to my desk for over a month. An potato chip bag that’s empty after Jessalyn polished them off. Some Taco Bell napkins, unused. A dried out marker. Gee whiz, I need to clean up around here!

4. When did you last use disposable cutlery while dining in your house?

Easy! Friday, October 10. We had 5 extra people here for dinner in honor of my son’s 12th birthday and so we used paper plates and platic utencils to eat dinner with that night.

5. Whose actions cause you to waste time you otherwise wouldn’t waste?

I’m looking at you my fellow Skype chatters! Actually I have no one to blame but myself. I’m the one with the power to get up and walk away from my computer and get busy with other things. Skype chatting is the biggest timesuck I find myself not walking away from.

Unfortunately I have no interesting stories to go along with today’s Friday 5. I actally have quite a bit to do around here today. Tomorrow is my oldest daugher’s 14th birthday. (Hold me) She’s having some friends over for the night and I really need to clean up this place before I go pick her up from school this afternoon. So I’m leaving the blog now, but will probably just close this window and open up the skype chat so I can get sucked into that and waste more of the day away.

It’s no big surprise that this is the time of year you’ll see many blog posts about gifts. This is another one. But I have a few thoughts you might not read in your typical gift post. Then again, maybe that’s not true. But, whatever.

I’ll start with a question. Is there someone in your life that’s a terrible gift giver? Maybe they’ve kown you your whole life, or at least a large portion of your life, yet they don’t seem to have a clue about you and the kinds of things you might like to have?

Just picture it, you’re sitting around the Christmas tree exchanging gifts. Everything gets passed out and you all take turns opening your presents. You reach for that beautifully packaged box and open it, only to find a book about gardening and you live in an apartment with no yard? Their reasoning is that you’ve always wanted to have a garden, so I got you this book on gardening.

Or lets say your kids grandmother bought your teenaged daughter one of those little makup sets intended for a 9 year old. Or your son gets a toy drumset intended for a 5 year old and he’s 12.

Let me be clear, neither my kids not I have ever received any of those items as gifts so I’m not being incredibly mean to anyone specifically. However, there might be people like that in my life. People that don’t seem to have a clue when it comes to gifting us. I think I’m pretty easy to buy for on the cheap. Starbucks cards, dinner at a sit-down restaurant, movie tickets, gift cards for craft supplies or makeup or books are always welcome. Bath sets as long as they’re not those horrible ones thrown together for the holidays you find at a store like Walmart. Quality bath salts, bath bombs, bubbles, lotions are always good.

I like to fancy myself a thoughtful giver. Sometimes I’ll buy an item that a person wouldn’t buy for themselves because it’s too expensive. However, it’s not so expensive that it would break the budget to give to someone as a gift. For instance, I have a family member that has always wanted something from a specific company known for its quality and high price tag. However, the piece I bought is going to be useful and it was very reasonably priced to give as a gift. It’s just not something he would buy for himself.

I’m sure there are times I missed the mark as well, and the person thought to themselves, what the hell was she thinking? Why would she ever think this was a good gift for me? Well heck, a few years ago I got Jason socks, underwear and undershirts. I also got him a Marshall MXL 990 as his “real” gift. Those necessities were something he desperately needed, but took a back seat to all the other things we needed to spend money on. It may not have been the most exciting gift ever, but definitely welcomed.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. I guess I’m wondering what you do when someone misses the mark on your gift. I’m sure most people would answer, “Smile and say thank you.” Or what if you give something to mom and when she opens it you can just tell you failed. What do you do?

Something I’ve been desperately trying to teach my oldest child is the value of a dollar.

I’ve struggled for years with her even-stevens mentality. Unfortunately my son’s birthday comes before hers and she keeps a mental checklist of just how much cash she got vs. him. She also pays attention to the money we spend on his birthday/Christmas gifts vs. hers.

On Black Friday, I took her shopping for some clothes/shoes for her birthday which would be in addition to the gift she gets on her actual birthday, this Friday. The problem with this is she knows exactly how much those clothes cost. It didn’t matter that everything she picked was marked down by half, but had an original market value of $100. I didn’t spend $100 and so its value isn’t worth $100.

She doesn’t know what else she’ll be getting from us, but in her mind, it had better equal $150 because she also knows just how much Rock Band (her brother’s birthday gift) costs in the stores. Nevermind that she plays the game more than he does, or that as I said, her clothing was originally valued at $100.

At the mall that evening, she was unhappy with me for not just throwing money at her so she could spend like the wind. Her birthday was coming after all! There was much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and general brattiness.

That night at home, the house was quiet, Jason was delivering Caitlin’s friends home, and it was just me and Caitlin. I decided to have a talk with her about money and the value of an item. I threw this out:

Let’s say we spent $500 on your brother. And then your birthday comes and we spend $5 on you. But this $5 item is something you desperately wanted. It was the perfect gift for you because it’s something you honestly wanted. Now let’s say instead we spend $500 on completely useless junk. Wouldn’t you rather have a $5 item that you truly wanted than $500 on something you have no use for? So those clothes that “only” cost $50 were valued at $100. Just because I’m a good bargain hunter doesn’t make it any less desirable.

She thought about that for a while, and seemed to understand what I was talking about. It was sinking in.

Her other birthday gift has a retail value of around $180, but am I spending that? No, because I’m getting a great deal on it. Does that make it worth less simply because I’m not spending the full retail value? No. Of course I don’t plan to announce what it did cost so she’ll never really know how much we spent on her gift.

I don’t know how long she’ll think about our conversation, or if it did any good. I don’t know if she’ll be counting her birthday dollars and have her mental calculation of just how much more or less she got than her brother. I just know I can’t have another blow out over gifts. If we do, that’ll be the end of it. I’m donating her to charity! Ok, maybe not, but maybe I’ll just spend her alloted gift funds on her brother and sister, or maybe I’ll donate the cash to charity. I’ll make a big deal out of it just to show her what a mean mom I can be when necessary.

In case you were wondering, No. No, my son doesn’t have the same mentality. At least not in the open. He doesn’t really care what he gets or how much it was as long as it’s something he finds enjoyable.

Thank goodness for that.

In an effort to inspire some friends to blog more, I thought it would be fun to bring back some old questions from the Friday 5 that used to be popular on LiveJournal.

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?

This is a tough one. I do consider myself to be organized, however if you walked into my abode, you might be tempted to call BS. But, the truth is, I know where most of our “stuff” is. Most of it has a permanent home and I know right where it is. Now does everything end up in its home in a timely manner? Not so much.

2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?

I have a wall calendar that I use much to Jason’s chagrin. I’m not sure if I’ll be getting a 2009 calendar because I’ve been making an honest effort to use iCal more since that’s what Jason looks at to see what’s going on with the family. My problem is remembering to actually look at iCal.

3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now?

Well, on my desk right this moment you will find a cup of tea I’m still drinking, seam ripper, a wooden play cookie, 2 pens, my coveted nail polish, nail clippers shaped like an alligator. Of course there is also my keyboard, speakers, mouse, mouse pad and monitor. So there are items that don’t belong here, but there’s no stack of paper clutter, nor is it covered with piles of junk.

4. Do you alphabetize CD’s, books, and DVD’s, or does it not matter?

Dvd’s are arranged as follows: Kid friendly movies on the bottom row, and everything else on the top. xbox games are also on the bottom row. Books? I don’t really keep a lot of books, but the ones I do have are arranged by subject matter. Music is all in iTunes and therefore arranged alphabetically by artist.

5. What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to organize?

My answer hasn’t changed since the last time I answered this years ago. It was the stockroom for the men’s department at the major department store I worked at. You wouldn’t believe the horrors I found in there. The nerve of some people when bringing a return or exchange hit home as I was going through the stock room. I found stacks of items dating so far back that I didn’t even know where to find its current value. And then there was the most evil paper bag in the history of paper bags.

Way up on a shelf above everyone’s head was a paperbag with a mystery item. No one had a clue what was in it and there was a thick layer of dust on it. Since it was up to me to get that room in tip top shape, I decided to just open the bag and see what the heck it was. If you don’t want to know, I suggest you just go away now. It’s ok, I understand.



There was a pair of jersey weight sweatpants. Gray… and brown. Only there wasn’t supposed to be brown on the pants. Someone had an accident of the, um, to put this delicately, runny variety. And then it was shoved in a bag and put into the stockroom for all of eternity. I have no idea if this was a return or someone in the store shopping was wearing the pants when it happened and swiped a new pair. I just don’t have any idea how they ended up in there, and I don’t want to know. This wasn’t in the kids department, these were full sized man pants. Also, it wasn’t an employee, at least one that was working when it happened because we weren’t allowed to wear sweatpants while working.

Now we had a policy that every single thing had to be accounted for and once these pants had been discovered I couldn’t just toss them. I had to figure out their “value” and then damage them out. Of course they had absolutely zero value to anyone sane, but for inventory purposes, they had to be accounted for. In the end, I assigned a ticket to the item, and then promptly damaged it out and chucked the bag into the huge dumpster. Horrible.

So yes, that stockroom was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to organize.

You know, I mentioned the nerve of some people with their returns. I was the only one working in the Men’s Sportswear department when an older man came in with a stack of about 5 pants. He thew the stack on the counter and said he wanted an exchange. There was no receipt of course. And upon inspecting the stack of pants, his motives were clear. They were old, and he wanted new pants without having to actually PAY for them. They were out of style and I said I’m sorry, but I can’t give you an exchange for these. He became irate and I called my manager who was upstairs at the time. I explained the situation to him and the guy was getting louder and louder. They just wanted the man out of the store so I was instructed to make an even exchange. The customer needed to leave happy.

The man came in with pants over a decade old, and left with brand new pants. Unbelievable.

A few weeks later as I was working the floor, I saw him approaching the door with another stack of old pants. Fortunately I wasn’t the only one working at the time, so I made a run for it to the stockroom. I wasn’t going to be nice if I had to deal with him again. And like before, he got brand new pants, but this time was escorted out by loss prevention with a stern suggestion that he never return again.

Would it surprise you if I told you the department store went bankrupt and closed the doors in 1995? No? Me neither with policies like that.

When I was growing up, my mother displayed the most embarrassing Christmas decorations. She had this hideous gingerbread man and candy cane fabric garland. She had ugly wooden ornaments, and atrocious golden sequined bell ornaments. There was the Rudolph made out of plastic melty… stuff for lack of a better word. And the cream of the ugly crop, the jewelry tree.

I was always excited to decorate for the season, and yet, I hated almost everything we put up.

Here’s the thing. I’m in my mid 30’s now and every year, I put up almost all of those decorations that I hated so much as a child.

Most of the ornaments and decorations mentioned were handmade. I think as a child, I associated homemade with cheap and being poor. Now that I’m an adult, I can look at the craftsmanship of each item and really appreciate the work that went into each piece.

Take that jewelry tree up there. That’s a picture of it as it hangs on my wall right now. I know detail is lacking, but hey, the shot was taken with my cell phone. What do you want. Looking at it now I see a very impressive work of art. It’s made with plywood, black velvet, Christmas lights and over 100 pieces of costume jewelry. They were laid out in such a manner that everything lines up and it’s an absolutely perfect tree. I have no doubt that it took hours to put together as well as time and money spent collecting all of the costume jewelry. Who know what the cost to make this project was. (BTW, this tree was created by my uncle for his mother, my grandmother, over 35 years ago)

I can tell you that I adore this piece. I think it’s beautiful and a fantastic way to recycle all that jewelry you’ll never wear again and doesn’t hold much monetary value.  I love this tree so much that I’ve started my own collection of costume jewelry, so that in a few years when I have enough, I’ll be making one of my own. I really can’t wait for that day to come.

I’m not sure if I didn’t appreciate it because I didn’t actually see my mother working on the handmade decorations. I never saw her crafting. My kids always see me working on projects. Caitlin, my oldest daughter, has been bitten by the craft bug. She sees AND appreciates all of the work that goes into creating something beautiful.

In fact the jewelry tree is hanging up in our place right now because she specifically requested the jewelry tree.

I think Jessalyn is just as fond of it as the rest of us are.

Jessalyn and Jason circa 2005